This came to me last night when it was boiling hot and I was supposed to be asleep and well I had to put it up at the first opportunity to see whether you would want me to write more. I know I have so many stories going on at the moment but I have no life honestly.

It was a year to the day. Exactly three hundred and sixty five days since she had died on the operating table, her blood on his hands as he'd sat waiting for news. The past twelve months had been spent in mourning and a desperation to find no longer just Johanna Beckett's killer but the murderer who had killed her daughter too and in some miracle they had managed too. On the three hundred and sixty fourth day into the most horrid year in Richard Castle's life he had watched as the killer of the woman he loved was arrested for all the crime he had committed and a sense of justice finally filled the two detectives, the ME and the writer, who had all lost an extreme friend and a colleague. And now it was all over, there was no longer a muse for Nikki Heat to follow around and annoy, to cover all the love he'd felt for the stubborn brunette and therefore Rick had left the twelfth for the last time to find himself now collapsed on his couch with an expensive bottle of wine and a phone full of photographic memories reminding him of what he had lost.

Finishing the bottle of red, he sighed as he stood up and went in search for another bottle, knowing his daughter had hid them in desperation to stop him from drinking himself into an early grave. But now there was no Alexis because she had gone abroad with friends and his mother had found herself a place of her own, so she was no longer needed his hospitality meaning that he was alone in the world or at least in his apartment. Giving up on his search of alcohol, he walked over to his laptop and began to flick through the photos, amazed at how many he had managed to collect over the year they'd spent together. His favourite out of the whole collection being one of Kate in LA which he had managed to get without her noticing, her dark hair damp from the pool but her slim and toned body shown to perfection in the pale costume she had decided to wear but it wasn't her lack of clothes that he loved, it was the smile on her face that was so carefree and perfect he couldn't help but love it, love her.

Hearing a knock at the door, he groaned, staring down at the scruffy and ripped jeans he was wearing before standing once again, this time to face the door. He hadn't ordered food because for the past year his appetite had decreased and along with that so had his weight, which he knew terrified his mother and daughter. His sleep patterns had also been affected with sleep becoming impossible for him without her dying face appearing in his mind, waking him in a hot sweat every night. Creeping towards the door at the smallest pace possible, his hand remaining over the handle for a moment when he finally reached it, he sighed before he opened the door to reveal a short haired brunette who was looking down, making it impossible to see her face while dressed in jeans, muddy grey trainers and a waterproof of a dirty grey almost black colour with the hood up, almost covering her face.

"Hey Castle" a familiar voice finally commented before the woman in front of him slowly lifted her head to reveal the familiar dark eyes of Detective Katherine Beckett.